CATCHING UP WITH ACCLAIMED SINGER/SONGWRITER VANCE GILBERT

Combine equal parts truth and humor; sprinkle liberally with wry wit; mix well with tongue firmly planted in cheek; bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. The result: a warm, delicious, satisfying serving of Vance Gilbert. Raconteur in the finest tradition, singer-songwriter extraordinaire, masterful musician, Gilbert serves up a unique blend of jazz and folk: comfort food for the soul.

With a dozen albums to his credit, his bio is as surprising as his music. He has performed with, or opened for, artists as diverse as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Arlo Guthrie, Ellis Paul, George Carlin, and Paul Reiser, to name a few, and is a regular at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.

Be it on stage, or in an interview, his easy manner draws you in. One moment you’re pondering the inequities of life, and the next you’re laughing until coffee (or the beverage of your choice) is in danger of coming out your nose. Such is the nature of his music and the force of his personality. And so went our interview, and my neatly ordered list of questions.

TCC: I’ve been enjoying following your Facebook page since I took this assignment. VG: Let me caveat that, I think Facebook kind of exploded around me just this last couple of days. I posed some questions that were… provocative at least. And sometimes I’m wondering if it’s really the venue to do that. But, you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s seductive. You want to say your piece on Facebook, but in reality sometimes I think it’s just the place to talk about puppies and kittens. Ironically, with all its electronic trappings and everything else that goes along with it, [Facebook] is the key to anything that might even remotely look like a grassroots movement. And that - the grassroots thing I’m speaking of - would be music at the level that I do it. For my level of music it’s just a necessity, because I have to create community around me, because I’m going town to town playing for 50-100 people, as opposed to 500- 1000. I’m big in the music business like a barnacle’s big in shipping. If I can go town to town and make enough money to pay my mortgage, and come home and feed these dogs, then I feel like I have made a living. And I feel like I’ve done a service. And I love that about this.

TCC: Since we started with Facebook, I would be absolutely remiss if I didn’t ask about your hair. Unlike most folk’s, yours is not merely something that sits atop your head and keeps you warm, or conforms to someone’s idea of style. Your hair is a force of nature! And it has a personality. But obviously, from your press photo, it wasn’t always that way. VG: I just let it grow. I have an aviation baseball hat collection – there must be 50 hats – and they’re all baseball hats and they all have an aviation logo from some airport or some aviation services and I can’t wear these hats anymore because of my hair. To be frank, when I put a hat on and play on the stage, I look like your friendly, black-neighbor-guy-next-door that’s probably out to mow his lawn, and makes sure to go back inside to tell his kids to do their homework. Whereas, with the big hair, you know… I’m trying to do anything I can to say something a bit… I don’t know what the big hair says, but if it sets me apart, if it gives me some presence, I’m going to do that. I think that’s a viable place to live.

TCC: It kind of goes along with your whimsicality in “Sweet Potato Dove.” On a number of your songs I started out thinking, “That’s such a great jazz riff,” and then all of a sudden I caught on to the words and started to laugh. “My Bad” is a great example of that. VG: You’re very right. The thing is, is that what happens at that point in time is that I’ve involved you. You’re involved. You’re captured. My job is done. Some of the songs, within the same song, I make you laugh and cry, and I take a fair amount of pride in that. Not that I’m making you cry- I think I take a certain amount of pride that I can give you a range of emotions, in the midst of my music, from being whimsical and comic to melancholic right on through to heartbreak. And I think that’s my hallmark. A lot of people in folk music scratch their head trying to figure out what I’m doing; I know the jazz people are wondering what the hell is going on, and again, if I can go around the country and put 50-100 people in each room and straddle a certain line, then I’m good.

TCC: How old were you when you got your first guitar? VG: Seventeen - I was in college. For the most part I taught myself; I’ve had, I’d say, four formal guitar lessons in my life. There’s a lot more I’d like to be able to do. Ironically enough, it involves more getting the guitar out of the way of the songwriting, which is what I teach. I try to get the songs out of the way, get the guitar out of the way, so that the song can come through.

TCC: When you write, do you have a particular process you go through, or is it different depending on the circumstance? VG: It’s the latter, but to answer the big question that most songwriters roll their eyes at when a reviewer asks, nowadays the words come first. And the reason why is the core of what I do: I’d like my legacy to be a songwriting one.

TCC: Where did you come up with the idea of the out-of-work alcoholic reindeer in “Holiday Employment”? VG: Well, the alcoholic part is something that I always thought, you know, people’s noses get red when they drink a lot. So I think that started the ball rolling. I wrote that song at a certain point during the recession. You know - if there’s tight times, or when people age - what’s the conversation between Santa and his wife when he’s old and he’s had a hip replacement? My mind rolls like this, and then all of a sudden, “How old are these reindeer?” Good god, has there been a turnover? Do any of them… do they get fired for being drunk? Or do they move on? You know, it takes the magic right out of the damn thing, but there’s new magic in there; it’s a different cartoon. It’s a different show.

TCC: You describe the emotions of the trucker with clarity in “Good Cup of Coffee.” Did that come from personal experience? VG: No, I’ve never been a trucker. Again, that was from the bowels of my imagination. I was wondering what that would be like, to be a trucker. My dad worked for the Philadelphia Gas Works, and he’s told me stories of the years… of what it was like being a black man – being one of the first people doing what he did on that job - coming up through the 50s and 60s. And the trucker part came out of a need for a little bit of his story to be kinetic. I asked him a lot about racism and such, and he didn’t go into a whole lot. Dad was a fighter; like, he was a battler, you know. He was reactive, and did a little time for it too. But his line always was: water at a white drinking fountain tasted no different than it did at the black fountain. And I know that is what he would say. So I added the trucker part because it was kinetic. That’s kind of his story, more than anything else. I think the best songs come out of a kernel of truth, but once the whole bag of popcorn is popped, it’s a story. The kernel’s for real, but the rest of the story - by necessity, I think - should be exciting. Comes from kind of enjoying your situation and just rolling, making stuff up.

TCC: “Old White Men”: does that have a kernel of truth, is it semi-autobiographical? VG: Absolutely. There’s a handful of old white men that are in that song, and then it becomes kind of transcendent: I become the old white man. And then at that point it doesn’t matter if the old man is white or not, it’s a matter of a mentorship despite the color, in lieu of, or disregarding the color of the individual. Being a mentor, and how that actually breaks the color thing down in a way. That pretty much speaks to that. That song was kind of a pinnacle of writing for me. I love that song. I love it every time I play it. I believe it every time I play it. “Old White Men” is kind of anthemic, in a way.

TCC: You toured extensively with George Carlin. Even though you work in different genres, you both make - he made - a living crafting words: mixing serious subjects with comic ones, speaking about the truths of life in a very unique way. Did that create a bond between you? VG: They were good to me. They paid me well and they always made sure I stayed in a half decent hotel. I got to see George quite a bit, but we didn’t really bond. We didn’t become buddies. His previous opening act, Dennis - I can’t remember Dennis’ last name - but they knew each other for 30 years, so those guys really bonded. And when they went in this other direction and decided to hire me, the thing that George loved most about what I did was that I was musical; I was streamlined, just me and the guitar, and I was all-encompassing entertainment. So I think he really loved that. And the fact that he loved this big a cappella tune I did called “The King of Rome,” an English tune. He thought that was the end and let me know in no uncertain terms that that should be done every night. When we had time between shows and there was a piano backstage, he’d sit and play old rock and roll tunes. He was a deejay, an old rock and roll deejay coming out of the ‘60s, before he even got into comedy. He could play all the tunes on the piano, and could sing, the cat could sing.

TCC: Who was the most fun to work with? VG: The most fun… oh my God, isn’t that a good question. I tell you who’s fun - I’ve been doing a lot of work with Paul Reiser; he’s a riot, I think his comedy is brilliant, I think he’s brilliant. His degree’s in music; he can play piano and sing and he’s a triple threat because he’s a great writer, actor, he’s a pretty decent musician, and he’s a wonderful stand-up guy, and he’s been a lot of fun. Backstage we laugh pretty hard about stuff.

TCC: What is the funniest, most touching or dramatic experience you’ve had on the road? VG: Well, I’ve got that. I think one of the most touching ones: singing for an audience of people in which there was a guy who was head-injured and didn’t speak. And as I was singing, he started to howl along to “Rainy Night in Georgia.” He’d been in a car accident, and his mom had taken him back in, his wife had left him - he was pretty much palsied, this young man. And he could, you know, he could communicate fairly well, but he really couldn’t speak very clearly, and he would howl along to what I was doing. And I took that tune and I said, “This is your opportunity.” We got to after the bridge, back to the verse, and I said, “Go ahead, take a solo.” And he howled and he howled. The crowd - there was like 50 people in there - you could hear them weeping, it was insane. It was amazing.

TCC: Borrowing a line from one of your songs, other than, “Never trust a woman wearing more than three inch heels,” do you have any parting wisdom for our readers? VG: I would ask the readers to listen for the story. That’s how all of us are trying to leave our legacy. Just listen. That’s all we can ask you to do.

As Bowie says, “The children that you spit on… they’re immune to your consultation, they’re quite aware of what they’re going through.” That’s the second verse of “Changes” and I really take that to heart. I would love people to not just listen to the boxes they’re in, but listen to the younger kids coming up and what they have to say, and listen to some of us older singer-songwriters that are still trying to make a living but being fresh with what we’re writing. Listen. There’s so much that we’re saying - the melody helps it along, the rhythm of the guitar is a wonderful thing - but there’s a story in there somewhere and I’m sure the story in there somewhere will help promote us all with a little kindness. That’s all I’m looking for.

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In a world where so often, things make little sense, Vance Gilbert makes the pieces fit just a little better. You can hear him play Saturday, March 5th, at 7:30pm at 6 on the Square: 6 Lafayette Park, in Oxford. Tickets are $22 pre-show, $25 at the door. Further information can be found at 6onthesquare.org, or by calling (607) 843-6876.